Tag Archives: Self-compassion

Imperfection

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Filed under Compassion, Poems, Self-compassion
photo taken by Greg after a recent ice storm

photo taken by Greg after a recent ice storm

I found this on a Google list serve about self-compassion. It is too perfect (irony caught) not to share.

IMPERFECTION

I am falling in love
with my imperfections
The way I never get the sink really clean,
forget to check my oil,
lose my car in parking lots,
miss appointments I have written down,
am just a little late.

I am learning to love
the small bumps on my face
the big bump of my nose,
my hairless scalp,
chipped nail polish,
toes that overlap.

Learning to love
the open-ended  mystery
of not knowing why

I am learning to fail
to make lists,
use my time wisely,
read the books I should.

Instead I practice inconsistency,
irrationality, forgetfulness.

Probably I should
hang my clothes neatly in the closet
all the shirts together, then the pants,
send Christmas cards, or better yet
a letter telling of
my perfect family.

But I’d rather waste time
listening to the rain,
or lying underneath my cat
learning to purr.

I used to fill every moment
with something I could
cross off later.

Perfect was
the laundry done and folded
all my papers graded
the whole truth and nothing but

Now the empty mind is what I seek
the formless shape
the strange  off center
sometimes fictional
me.

Elizabeth Carlson : Source: Teaching With Fire

New Thoughts for the New Year

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Filed under Change, Goals, New Year, Self-compassion

There is so much good writing out there, and it seems like everyone was inspired to write at the end of the year. Here are some excerpts from some of the favorite posts I read.

Life Isn’t a Calendar, by Jenna McGuiggan, a writer, editor, and creativity coach. You can find her over at The Word Cellar.

The calendar days are tidy squares lined up in orderly rows, everything numbered to provide a false sense of linearity. It tricks us into thinking life is this way. Choose a word, set an intention, make a goal. Move forward, declare DSC_0044accomplishment. Make another list and tick it off step-by-step. But life is not a calendar or a list or a ladder you can climb rung-by-rung. Life is the ebb and flow of ocean tides, the sunlight and dappled shadow of forest paths, the contrast of white snow on evergreen boughs. Life is the overcast sky of winter that blurs the line between day and night, and the long June days when golden light seeps well into the night. Life is now. It’s the driveway that needs shoveling, the dishes that need washing. It’s the candles you light, the books you read, the tea you drink, the people you kiss. It’s the lists you make and the ones you forget. One step forward, two steps back, and three to the side for good measure.

In three days I’ll turn the page to another year, but I’ll know that this is just one way of keeping time. There are other ways to make sense of things, to pay attention to what matters.

The Art of Letting Go, by Lisa Lorden Myers, an author and fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue sufferer who works passionately to help others cope with chronic illness.

It’s funny how determination and will power can be so difficult to apply to the goal of doing less, instead of doing more.  We may know how to commit ourselves to goals and work to achieve them, but can we have similar determination to rest and to heal?  Can our will power be devoted to “letting go”?  Perhaps the New Year is a time to re-focus ourselves less on doing, and more onbeing.

Healing requires no resolutions—it requires only that we live each day the best way we know how, listening to our bodies, and nurturing our souls.

The Top Ten Resolutions Nobody Will Keep from Toni Bernard, author of How to Be Sick and Psychology Today blogger.

Every year I torture myself by making New Year’s Resolutions that I don’t keep. So, as a public service, in order to save you the trouble of letting yourself down yet again, I offer the Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions that Nobody Will Keep:

(she lists 10, so be sure and read the whole article, but my personal favorite is #9)

Number 9: I will maintain a positive attitude.

I learned from another Psychology Today writer that this is known in the therapeutic trade (of which I’m not a member) as “the tyranny of positive thinking.” Hurray! It’s okay not to always be positive. I think I’ll toss this resolution out straight away.

I had the privilege of interviewing Toni last year. You can read it here.

Rilke Always Says It Best, posted on Barbara Storey’s blog, Storeylines: One Person, Many Lives

And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

I hope the first week of 2013 treated you well!

Open

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Filed under Self-Acceptance, Self-compassion, Taking Risks, Word of the Year
Photo by Tom Haymes via Flickr (cc)

Photo by Tom Haymes via Flickr (cc)

So many people have already posted their word for the year, and as usual, I’m a few steps behind. Oh well. My word for the upcoming year is Open. Greg actually suggested the word to me. He said, “What about the word open?” and I immediately said, “Nah…”  There I was shooting down an idea before I really thought about it. Not very open of me. And here’s another interesting tidbit. I finally decided that Open was going to be my word. Then today I clicked on Ali Edward’s Word of the Year blog, and she had just announced that her word for 2013 is Open. I felt a little deflated. She took my word! But that’s okay. I’m sure there’s enough space (openness) in the world for us both to have the same word.

I’m sure my word will take on lots of new meanings over the course of the year, but here are a few of the things I’m hoping I can do:

Open to possibilities. I tend to get locked down in my thinking…not being able to see there may be many paths, many ways of doing things, if I’m only open to seeing things in a new way. I also think I may be on the brink of some changes in my professional life, and I want to be open to seeing that there may be many ways I can share my talents.

Open  to taking risks. I’m quite risk aversive. I  have to push myself to try new things. My worry brain is always telling me to play it safe. I really don’t have anything in mind when I think about risks, but we’ll see what happens. I may surprise myself and do something crazy.

Open myself up to people. I used to be painfully shy–not so much anymore, but I’m still a through-and-through introvert. I don’t let too many people really get to know me. And if I do, it takes a long time. I can work at a place for years and barely make a dent in getting to know my coworkers. I want to make a conscious effort to change this and share more of myself with others. I need to make a few more friends, too. It’s kind of  hard to find friends when you’re fifty.

I’m excited about the word Open. It’s a noun. It’s a verb. It’s an adjective. It’s a Superword!

The very word itself implies adaptation and flexibility, two things I need more of in my life.

And in the spirit of flexibility, any variation on the word open is okay. I like the word openness, too. Here’s a great quote I found on Good Reads.

Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” ― Tony Schwartz

Crossing the Great Divide

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Filed under Compassion, Self-compassion, Videos

DSC_0011 2

I made this video a few weeks ago but have been waiting for the perfect time to share it. Well, there really is no perfect time, but the start of a New Year comes pretty close.

My inspiration comes from two sources.

One is this quote:

“Religion is like a multi-colored lantern. Each of us looks through a different piece of glass, but the light is always there.” –Mohammed Naquib, a 20th-century Egyptian politician and author.

The other is a line I heard while listening to a podcast. Jean Houston talked about “crossing the great divide of otherness.” These two quotes intermingled in my mind and this is what emerged.

We let so much divide us.

Who we love.

What we believe.

Where we came from.

We put things into categories:

Good and Bad

Right and Wrong

Black and White

Categorizing is part of what makes us human. It means we can think.

But sometimes this kind of thinking can get us into trouble.

People don’t fit into neat and tidy categories.

Human beings defy categories because we are:

Complex

Textured

Messy

Broken

Whole

We need to drop the categories, that make us feel so adrift and alone.

Let’s cross the great divide of otherness,

and realize that we are more alike than different.

All we need to do is look up

to see that we’re all connected.

No matter what part of the glass you look through,

The light is always there.

May the light sustain you,

guide you,

and give you courage.

Share the warmth.

Some Favorite Blog Pictures from 2012

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Filed under Photography, Uncategorized

A big part of the fun of this blog has been working with Greg on the images. He’s such a great photographer. I keep thinking I’ll learn to take my own pictures, but then I wonder why?  I can be the director and tell him what I want and voila, I get it! So here are some of my favorite photos he’s taken for my blog this year.

Larry loves to dream, big or small, it doesn't matter

DSC_0254DSC_0055

Hearts Set Free

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Word of the Year

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noname-7

“Light”
photo by Greg Markway

Did you know there is actually a word of the year? According to Dictionary.com, the word for 2012 is bluster. This is how they define bluster:

1.
to roar and be tumultuous, as wind.
2.
to be loud, noisy, or swaggering; utter loud, empty menaces or protests: He blusters about revenge but does nothing.

They cited the election and the weather as being the two big stories of 2012, and aptly noted that there was a lot of bluster involved in both.

There is also another Word of the Year project that takes place. I first heard about it from reading Brene´ Brown’s blog, Ordinary Courage. She selected a single word that she used as a touch point to guide her through the year. Her word was “light.” Brene´ got the idea from Ali Edwards, who runs an entire e-course on using a word of the year for self-growth.  Ali writes:

A single word can be a powerful thing. It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything. It can be sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow. From my own personal experience, it can be a catalyst for enriching your life.

As 2013 approaches, I started to think, “Maybe I need a word for the year.”  I tried talking with Greg about it. After explaining the concept to him, our conversation went something like this:

Barb: I wonder what my word of the year could be? (not getting much of a response, so I prod him.)

Greg:  I don’t know. Maybe your word should be “word.”

Barb: What? Why would my word be “word”? That makes no sense. You’re not taking this seriously.

After bantering back and forth a bit (good-naturedly, off course) , I decided there is a gender difference in what gets written and read on the internet. It’s not that he’s not taking it seriously, he just doesn’t relate. He’s the most caring and sensitive man I know, but he doesn’t read the same kind of blogs I read.  Selecting a word for the year simply isn’t something he’d ever think about doing.

I’m going to pick a word for the year. I’m not yet sure what it will be, and I wonder how I’ll ever keep it to a single word.

Brene´ said she didn’t want the word “light” to be her word (I’m not sure why; it’s a good word). She said that the word picked her. It kept popping up in her mind.

Ali says the word can be practical or fanciful. It can be a feeling word or an action word. It can be a word that represents what you want more of–or less of–in your life.

Later in the day, we were shooting some footage for a new video I’m working on. I was throwing colored tissue paper scraps into the air when Greg exclaimed, “Your word should be color!” At least he was trying.

“Color”
photo by Greg

Montage Magic

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One really cool thing I’ve discovered this year is that you can take an e-course on about any subject you can imagine, and most of them are priced very affordably. I am two weeks into a 3-week video making class called Montage. The class teaches you the technical aspect of using iMovie on a Mac, but it also has a fun, creative side in which you learn to put your heart and soul into the movie and tell a story. I’ve made two videos so far.

Here’s the first one. All of the footage was taken at my brother and sister in law’s home in Gerald, Missouri. It’s just under two minutes. Short and sweet.

Leaving Worry Behind

This is the second one, also about two minutes. The footage was taken in my backyard. I feel more self-conscious in this one because I do some speaking. I don’t know, does anyone like hearing their own voice? Well, hope you like it.

Busy Be Gone

The class has been great and well worth the money. I think I’m really going to like having a new creative outlet.

To be notified of new posts, head on over to my Self-Compassion Project Facebook page and click “Like”. (It’s also on the sidebar, but no one ever sees it there.)

Leaving Judgment Behind

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Photo by macinate via Flickr Creative Commons

Sometimes I think I need to change this to a blog about coping with chronic pain. I’m on to a new doctor and another round of physical therapy. I’m frustrated that I haven’t been able to write more and keep up with my blogs. On a positive note, though, I have been watching a great video series called, The Compassionate Brain. The last “episode” featured Tara Brach, a leading teacher of mindfulness and author of Radical Acceptance and her forthcoming book, True Refuge. She told a story that I really liked. Sometimes I have trouble remembering something long enough to retell it, but I really wanted to share it with Greg, so I tried extra hard to concentrate.

Here’s the story:

Imagine you are walking through the woods and you see a small dog. You approach the dog and move to pet the dog. It suddenly snarls and tries to bite you. The dog no longer seems cute and you may feel some fear and anger. As the wind blows, the leaves on the ground are carried away and you see the dog has one of its legs caught in a trap. Now, you feel compassion for the dog. You know it became aggressive because it is in pain and suffering.

I told the story to Greg when he got home, and he really like it, too. The very next evening, he told me about a conversation he had with a colleague at work. She was struggling with another person in the agency. This other person came across as very negative and rigid and they were butting heads over some issue. Greg told her the story of the dog in the trap. She later thanked him because this helped her view the “difficult” co-worker in a different light.

I like this story on so many levels. It helps “depersonalize” conflict. When someone disagrees with us or somehow makes our life difficult, it is not really about us—it may be about their pain. Rather than assigning negative motives to those who challenge us, why don’t we give them the benefit of the doubt?

And, if we can give others the benefit of the doubt, why can’t we do the same for ourselves?

Sometimes I feel that I’m not really doing enough with my life. My chronic pain has led me to work fewer hours at my job. And when I’m at home, I need more time to rest—meaning I am less productive there as well.

At other times, though, I see that I make a difference. I think it’s pretty cool that I heard a story while listening to the warm and wise Tara Brach, and then told my husband, who told a colleague…and that this story helped someone think more compassionately about a seemingly difficult co-worker.  This is storytelling at its best.

My influence may be less direct, but no less meaningful. And maybe it’s not about producing a quantity of work…maybe its about being as compassionate as I can be, to myself and others, and seeing where that leads me.

To be notified of new posts, head on over to my Self-Compassion Project Facebook page and click “Like”. (It’s also on the sidebar, but no one ever sees it there.)

Subtle Shifts

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Sometimes I wonder if I’m making any progress with this self-compassion project. This morning, though, I got confirmation from a tiny exchange with my husband that, YES, shifts are happening!

We were looking for something and I was getting frustrated with the piles of paper all over our house. I said to him, “my goal for this weekend is to get us semi-organized.” He ran over and hugged me. I thought to myself, “what is this about?” He said, almost ecstatically, “I’m so proud of you! You didn’t say the goal was to get totally organized.” I laughed and smiled. It’s true. I do tend to use the word “totally” too much. I want to get things done, and done perfectly. I don’t want any of this mess that seems to surround us. But getting totally organized hadn’t even crossed my mind. Semi-organized would be just fine.

In today’s culture where everything is “super-sized” or “epic”, it’s easy to miss the little things. But I’m realizing the little things matter–a lot. This weekend I’m going to look closer, and see if there are some other changes in myself I haven’t yet noticed.

What about you? Have you made any tiny changes that made a difference in your life?

Exposure and Adaptation

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Filed under Change, Self-Acceptance

Enjoying the patio first thing in the morning

Glasses:  I have always thought I wanted glasses—it would be another fun fashion accessory. My friend, Amy, has always had the cutest glasses and looked so stylish. One of my previous secretaries bought frames on sale so that she was able to have several pairs of glasses to match various outfits (my fave–red frames with red shoes!) So when I went to my eye appointment this year and he said I actually needed glasses, I had a moment of euphoria. Yeah! What trendy frames would I select?

Yet the whole process has been weeks of frustration for me. Now that I needed glasses, I didn’t want them. I ended up not getting super trendy frames because at nearly $500, I needed a pair that would go with everything.  My vanity kicked in big time and I thought they made me look old. I also worried that my mostly silver jewelry didn’t go with the frames, and I couldn’t afford to go out and buy all new jewelry (although that would have been fun.)

Most of all, I have had problems adjusting to the progressive lens which were prescribed. I’ve been back to the eyeglass shop three times, and each time they’ve encouraged me to give it a while longer. I’ve talked obsessively to Greg about it. Where do I look? Why can’t I make this part come in focus? They make my nose hurt. I’m getting a headache. I can see the edges of the frames. The world simply looked weird, and I felt groundless.

I finally realized that I’m fighting too hard and I’m definitely not being self-compassionate. I wish it hadn’t taken me three weeks to figure this out 🙂 I’m expecting this to be easy and feeling like there’s something wrong with me for not adapting more quickly. The eye doctor told me it would take three weeks of wearing them nonstop (DO NOT TAKE THEM OFF, he said). I beat myself up and called myself “noncompliant” because I did not do as he said. I’d make it for several days wearing them all the time, get frustrated and take them off, only to start over the next day. The eyeglass shop people were very kind and told me I was not unusual. They’d heard all these complaints about progressive lenses many a time. Yet I still felt like there was something wrong with me.

I think I’ve forgotten just how complex the brain is, and how this is a really tricky thing I’m asking my brain and eyes to do. From now on, I will gently remind myself that change is hard for most people, not just me.  I’ll also remember that people adapt at different rates, and I will give myself the time I need.

Oh, and I don’t think I’ve every posted a picture of myself sans make-up. Talk about exposure! I’m working on the vanity thing.

Weather: You can’t be a Missourian and not talk about the weather. This is a screen shot of the temps we’ve had lately, and there’s no rain or relief in site. It’s strange, once it’s over 100 degrees,  you don’t really notice the difference. I’ve desperately been trying to keep my flowers alive. A few have bit the dust. I should’ve taken a picture of the dead ones to remind me that everything changes; everything dies; it’s just a matter of time. I’ve been giving the birds fresh water several times a day. We’ve created quite the oasis for our feathered friends. I’ve mostly been doing my bird watching through a window these days. I rearranged some furniture downstairs just so I’d have a special place to enjoy their antics. Sometimes there are four birds splashing in the birdbath at once. It makes me smile!

Hydrangeas from our yard and
my grandmother’s antique mirror

Photography: Now that I have glasses where I can see close up and far away, I’m going to try to learn photography. I actually had some decent photography and darkroom skills as a journalism major in college, but I have forgotten everything I used to know. Up until now, I’ve just bossed Greg around telling him what pictures I need for the blog—actually, the system has worked out pretty well! But I think it will be good for my brain to focus on learning something new. This picture took me about an hour, with Greg’s help.

The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.

         –Yousuf Karsh